The Company She Kept

by Marjorie Eccles

  Abigail picked up the framed snapshot, glanced at it and passed it over to Mayo. ‘That’s my husband, the bearded one,’ the old woman said with pride. ‘He was Dr Alfred Wilbraham. I don’t suppose you’ve heard of him unless you’re particularly interested in archaeology, but he was in his day one of the most eminent people in his field.’

  The photo must have been taken fifty or more years ago, at some archaeological dig in the desert. The camera had caught Kitty and Milcslav Bron laughing together, with the short and stocky, plus-foured Alfred Wilbraham standing a little apart. Bron looked dashing and swarthily handsome; the young Kitty, with an abundance of curling hair and an impish smile, was pretty and petite. The two looked as though they were used to sharing laughter.

  ‘How long did Irena Bron stay here?’

  ‘In the event, eighteen months. I never had any intention of supporting her indefinitely and she was, I must admit, difficult to live with at times. I was quite relieved when she announced she had obtained a position in the City and was leaving.’

  ‘What do you think made her decide to leave?’

  ‘I have no idea. Madeleine Freeman suggested it and I suppose it just appealed to her at the time. She was a creature of whim.’

  ‘She left on August the fifteenth, 1979, to be precise? And you gave a farewell dinner for her the night previously?’ She raised to her lips the glass of mint tea that stood by her side and sipped. ‘If you say so. I don’t really remember, it’s all so long ago. It would have been somewhere around that date, I imagine.’

  ‘And the others who were present were,’ Mayo said, ticking them off on his fingers, ‘Madeleine Freeman and Angie Robinson, your handyman, Thomas? Yes? Felix Darbell?’ She nodded. ‘And Sophie Amhurst?’

  ‘Yes, Sophie, too.’ At the roll-call of names she smiled and he saw the charisma was still there after all. It was easier now to see why they had loved her, all those young people she had drawn around her, and why they had wanted to protect her, keeping Irena’s death from her.

  ‘I’m going to have to ask you to tell me what happened that night, Mrs Wilbraham.’

  ‘Nothing happened, that I recall. I was very tired and went to bed early.’

  ‘We’ve been told there was some trouble, some sort of table-tapping session, ending in a quarrel.’

  ‘I know nothing about that, I was in bed,’ she repeated stubbornly.

  He had no option but to accept what she said. ‘Did you hear from Irena after she left your house?’

  She shook her head. ‘Not even a letter?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And you didn’t think of making inquiries?’

  She made a gesture of impatience. ‘She might have been anywhere in the world, any of the places she’d lived in before she came to me. She – and her father – were like gipsies, never staying in any place for long. No, I was too old, even then, to go to all the bother of making inquiries.’

  ‘Forgive me, but I noticed it didn’t surprise you to learn she was dead?’

  ‘When you’ve lived as long as I have, very little surprises you.’ She began to speak quickly so that her words slurred slightly. ‘It’s difficult to remember after all this time but yes, I think I began to believe she must be. I realized even Irena would not be silent for so long. Irena less than anyone, perhaps. I never knew a woman more voluble, in at least three languages! I’m afraid I used to find her tiresome on the whole, an excitable sort of temperament, you know, though that was only to be expected, considering her background ...’ She broke off with a sigh. She was beginning to look very tired, and alarmingly flushed across her cheekbones. ‘More tea, Mr Mayo, Miss Moon? Please help yourselves.’

  How much of what she’s said was true, or how much had she come to believe it was? She hadn’t asked for details of how Irena Bron had died and he wondered if she had quite understood what his request about the lake meant. When Abigail had performed the rites with their teacups, he said, ‘You do understand that Irena’s death was not due to natural causes?’

  ‘If you’re going to drag the lake, I assume it wasn’t,’ she answered, suddenly sharp. ‘But Irena, I assure you, was not the sort to take her own life. It must have been an accident.’

  There was a pause. Mayo said, ‘Felix Darbell has confessed to her murder.’

  It was a long time before she spoke. ‘Has he indeed?’ she said at last. ‘Well, he never liked her. He thought she was after my money when I died.’ She added with a brief, wintry smile, ‘They all did.’

  Money. Never far behind, money. And because the house was neglected and decaying and the two old women lived a frugal existence, it didn’t mean there wasn’t any. Did Kitty’s wealth lurk there, in the background, as the key to all this? Another idea occurred to him. Was it possible that Irena Bron had been Kitty’s daughter, the result of a liaison with the dashing Miloslav Bron? Was that why she had put up with her for so long?

  ‘And was she, ma’am?’ he asked bluntly. ‘After your money?’

  ‘I’d have soon sent her packing, if she had been!’

  And so vehemently was it said that he immediately dismissed the idea of a mother/daughter connection. Yet this question had disturbed her. She was avoiding looking at him and her gaze was travelling slowly round the room, resting briefly on her treasures as if they were, ultimately, the only things left to draw comfort from. ‘Murder,’ she repeated, ‘that’s a very terrible thing.’

  He said bluntly, ‘What made you leave Flowerdew so suddenly, ma’am, and return to Tunisia? Immediately after Irena had gone?’

  ‘Oh,’ she returned, shrugging, ‘why does one do anything? I wanted to go, so why not? That’s the consolation of age, one is no longer bound by convention. It doesn’t matter now, anyway. And now, I’m sorry, I’m very tired, you’ll have to excuse me. I’m really too old for all this. Recalling the past can be very exhausting.’

  Mayo stood up immediately and so did Abigail. It was difficult to discern whether she really was too tired to go on, or was simply making excuses to get rid of them, but she had been for the most part cooperative and he had to accept her dismissal. He wasn’t in the business of intimidating old ladies. Besides, when you’d lived nigh on a hundred years, he reckoned you were entitled to tell nosey-parker coppers to shove off when you’d had enough of them. He would come again with more questions and hope to find out just what it was she was concealing.

  ‘Thank you for seeing us, Mrs Wilbraham. I’m sorry we’ve had to trouble you.’

  When they were at the door, her voice spoke behind them. ‘But you haven’t told me what all this has to do with Angie Robinson? Has – has Felix murdered her, too?’

  He considered her for a moment. ‘He swears that he didn’t.’

  She contemplated her swollen hands, crossed in her lap. ‘Poor Felix. He was always his own worst enemy.’ There was a frozen look on her old face as she raised it. ‘I suppose it’s always easier the second time.’

  Soon after that, a flurry of activity began by the old boathouse; frogmen arrived with their gear, the pathologist came, and a clutch of detectives. Police vehicles and the ambulance blocked the road outside the house. Finally, the lake at Flowerdew surrendered its secrets. What was left of Irena Bron was recovered from its murky depths. The old house, which had probably seen much worse in its long history, slumbered on.

  CHAPTER 18

  By this time Angie Robinson’s bank manager had at last returned from whatever business (or pleasure) had been keeping him away, and Mayo managed to fix up an interview with him. He was called Smythe, a youngish man of rather stout proportions, who took himself seriously and sported mutton-chop whiskers like Abraham Lincoln or Mr Murdstone. A harmless affectation, the whiskers gave him a certain weighty authority by putting years on his age and boosting his trustworthiness rating by several points.

  ‘We – the bank, that is – are her executors,’ Smythe told him, intimating that he would be willing to cooperate in the matter of letting Angie’s affair
s be known. ‘How can I help you?’

  The first thing Mayo learned was that Angie Robinson had deposited all her personal papers with the bank several weeks ago, which explained their absence among her personal effects. The second was that there was a very substantial amount of money in her account, and that she’d either been financially astute or had been well-advised in the management of it. In addition to a sizeable capital on which interest had accrued, there were stocks, shares and investment trusts bringing in further dividends. Her salary from the Area Health Authority had been paid in monthly, and her outgoings were modest, apart from a large withdrawal recently to finance the purchase of her new Astra. If her intention had been to blackmail Felix Darbell, it appeared to have been for reasons other than a need for money, though where the capital had come from in the first place was a question to which Mayo would need an answer.

  ‘There’s also the property, of course,’ added Smythe, presenting him with the answer before he asked.

  ‘Property? Which property?’

  ‘The house where she lived in Kilbracken Road, for a start. That should fetch a reasonable price when the market looks up again. There’s a continuing demand for that sort of substantial family house. Not too big, though I dare say it’ll need a bit of modernizing – new bathrooms and so on. I don’t think Miss Robinson’s ever done anything of that sort. Just as her parents left it.’

  Mayo had been in the game long enough not to be surprised for long at anything he heard but there was always something that could knock you off your peg. After a moment, he said, ‘I was under the impression it belonged to Dr Freeman.’

  ‘I don’t know who gave you that information. It came to Angela Robinson nearly twenty years ago, after her parents died. In fact, Joseph Robinson’s father left it to him, as well as the business.’

  ‘What business was that?’ Mayo asked carefully.

  It turned out to be Robinson’s Hardware in the High Street, a shop Mayo passed every day of his life. ‘You must know it,’ Smythe said, ‘they’re still trading under that name, though none of the family are now concerned. Joseph Robinson sold it shortly before he died ... which meant there was still a tidy sum left for his daughter. As for the house,’ he added, stroking his luxuriant whiskers in the approved Victorian manner, ‘Dr Freeman will be able to stay there until such time as she decides to leave ... I understand she’s getting married shortly. The contents will, of course, now have to be sold as well.’

  ‘Who’s the beneficiary? Dr Freeman?’

  ‘No. Everything goes to a charity – to the Leukaemia Fund, as it happens.’

  Not a bean to the Women’s Hospital. And before Mayo left, Smythe lobbed another grenade into his lap. ‘The house in Bulstrode Street, by the way. That will be sold, too, of course, but as a business proposition, which was why Joseph Robinson bought it. Sadly, now,’ he added, ‘with vacant possession of the top-floor flat.’

  Mayo was willing to concede that it was not Madeleine Freeman’s fault that he had assumed the Kilbracken Road house to be hers – although she’d said nothing to contradict his assumption. He could only conclude it was probably a harmless bit of snobbery to let him think she owned it, particularly if, say, she’d come from a less affluent background than Angie.

  But why had Angie, with all her resources, chosen to leave her home and live in Bulstrode Street, of all places? ‘Pique,’ said Abigail Moon.

  ‘Pique?’

  ‘Jealousy because Madeleine Freeman was getting married. After all, they’d spent most of their lives in each other’s pockets – she was Angie’s only friend as far as we know – and Angie seems to have been the sort of person who wouldn’t hesitate to make anyone feel bad for leaving her in the lurch. You know the sort of thing: “How am I going to manage, all on my little own? I can’t stay here rattling around in this place all by myself, it’s not fair. Look what you’ve reduced me to.” Even though it was supposed to be only temporary until she bought herself something nicer. She could’ve got a lot of mileage out of that, playing the martyr.’

  It was a shrewd guess that filled in with what they’d learned of Angie Robinson’s character. And it was the only explanation Mayo could think of for anyone going to live in Bulstrode Street who didn’t absolutely have to.

  ‘George,’ he said, ‘did you know Angie Robinson was one of the same family as Robinson’s Hardware?’

  ‘Robinson’s Hardware?’ echoed George Atkins. ‘No, I didn’t.’ His knowledge of Lavenstock, its villains, its customs, and all the people who lived therein was legendary and he was mortified that he hadn’t previously made the connection between the murdered woman and the shop, although there was no reason why he should have done so. ‘I know it was started by old Spencer Robinson and carried on by his son Joe. And he’s been dead donkey’s years.’

  ‘Was he the sort to knock his wife and child about?’

  ‘Joe Robinson? Nah! Never! The last man –!’ Atkins stopped, running his hand over his grizzled head, his expression rueful. ‘Wish I’d a pound for every man I’ve said that about and been proved wrong! Who knows what goes on between four walls? But Joe Robinson? Can’t say it’s impossible, mind – but I’d be surprised.’

  ‘What do you know about Dr Freeman’s background? She and Angie went to the same school, so she must be local.’

  Atkins shook his head. ‘Not from the town, I reckon. Maybe one of the villages. I can find out.’

  ‘Do, when you’ve time. As a matter of interest.’

  Mayo began to be haunted by a sense of failure and a feeling that there was something, somewhere, that he had noticed subconsciously and not remembered, something just outside his grasp, like a shadow on the mind.

  The trouble was, they had incidentally solved one murder they hadn’t known had been committed, but he was still left with the original unsolved murder on his hands.

  He could not accept that the two were unconnected. Somewhere there was a pattern that linked them, a chain of events that had been set in motion by Irena Bron’s death. This murder of Angie Robinson was where it had all started for him and he was damned if it was going to go down as one of the unsolved crimes of the twentieth century.

  He shrugged on his jacket and left word that he was going home.

  Outside it was a cold, hard night and the sky was thick with stars. Already the pavements were sparkling with frost. He took deep breaths of the sharp, invigorating air, welcome as wine after the grossly overheated premises he’d just left and felt the need all at once to stretch his legs before the drive home.

  Mayo’s habit of striding around the town at all times of the day or night, sometimes even in the small hours, was something he was well known for by now. He wasn’t always welcomed, not only by the criminal fraternity but sometimes by members of the strength who were skiving a crafty half-hour off duty, or pursuing leisure activities they’d rather he didn’t know about. But that didn’t stop Mayo. He saw the town in all its moods, knew its dark corners and its short cuts, what went on in its pubs and clubs and the twice-weekly market. He was sometimes able to anticipate where trouble was likely to occur.

  Tonight his walk was more purposeful than usual, taking him up Hill Street and past the old chapel – Ebenezer Methodist Chapel. All welcome, it still said on the board outside. He paused outside the little forecourt to read it, listening to the roar of the ring road in the distance as it skirted Bulstrode Street. He walked the hundred yards or so up to the car park at the Women’s Hospital and two or three minutes later passed the end of Kilbracken Road, where the house with its For Sale notice stood dark, its curtains undrawn across its blank windows. By the time he emerged into the High Street again, thoughts were beginning to stir; the pattern he had been seeking was beginning to form in his mind, but it was not one that made him feel any better.

  Turning towards Milford Road and the station car park, food smells assailed him on all sides, steamy wafts from the chippie and assorted savoury odours from the Lotus Blossom, the
Burger King and the pizza palace on the corner, and he was suddenly seized by hunger, realizing that he hadn’t had a square meal for days and nothing at all since his sketchy breakfast. He pushed open the door of the Saracen’s, deciding to stop off there for supper.

  The first people he saw inside were DC Spalding and someone it took him a moment or two to register as Abigail Moon, her hair loose and falling in a coppery curtain to her shoulders. Even in the brief glimpse he had of the couple he felt the intensity of their absorption. It was a situation he had never envisaged and didn’t want to know about. The last thing he needed at the moment was personal involvement among his team, of the sort likely to bring disruption to the investigation. He didn’t think they’d seen him and went to sit with his back to them in one of the curtained booths facing the door. It wasn’t a seat he would have otherwise chosen. It was in a draught and he was on full view from the foyer. He ordered a half of bitter and a grilled steak, little knowing he’d been witness to the last throes of their affair.

  ‘Don’t look now,’ Abigail said, ‘but the Gaffer’s just come in. I don’t think he’s seen us. We can go out the other way.’

  ‘Stay where you are,’ Spalding said intensely, by now in no mood for retreat. ‘We’ve a perfect right to be here. And we’re still in the middle of a discussion, remember?’

  ‘We’ve said everything there is to say,’ she said wearily. They’d been bickering like this for half an hour. It was a situation that would have been ludicrous had it not been so painful – both feeling guilty for not feeling guilty enough.

  She drained the last of her orange juice. ‘I saw Roz at Pennybridge this afternoon.’

  It took a lot to make him lose his temper, but Abigail had succeeded. ‘You did what? You deliberately went and discussed me with my wife?’

  ‘No, not deliberately. I had to check Sophie’s alibi with her – and she was the one who broached the subject. I don’t know how she knew who I was – she just cottoned on, I suppose. Nick,’ she said, suddenly urgent, ‘there’s still a chance for you two to get your act together, as long as you’ll try and compromise a bit.’